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The Supreme Court recently ruled that the post-9/11 laws against "materially supporting" terrorist groups should be very broadly interpreted. Even counseling any group on the official list of terrorist organizations about peaceful topics is now to be considered "supporting terrorism." Which leads me to wonder what they'd say about actually paying a terrorist organization tens of millions of dollars.
Our headline today quite obviously references the legislative progress this week on banning the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy (of not allowing gay people to openly serve their country)... but we've got another asking-and-telling issue which we simply must deal with first, before we get to any of that.
The recent controversy over Republican senatorial nominee Rand Paul's comments and views on civil rights (and on the role of the federal government versus private business and private individuals in general), is certainly entertaining and quite possibly damaging to his candidacy (or possibly not, this is Kentucky we're talking about, after all), but at the same time it is probably not going to be the key issue that decides Kentucky voters this November. It's a pretty safe assumption that most people for whom civil rights are a top voting issue have already made up their minds not to vote for Paul anyway. But there's a much more fundamental argument to have with Tea Party candidates like Paul (and Republican candidates in general) which, so far, has been missing in the media debate. The real question that should be asked is: "What, exactly, in the federal budget will you cut to 'rein in Washington spending' and attack the deficit?" Because the answers to that are going to be the most effective argument to make against the Tea Party movement's surge within the Republican Party -- because my guess is that no matter what they answer, the voters are not going to like it.
The new media narrative, which is exactly what the White House was pushing just before the primaries happened, coincidentally (for once, Democratic framing actually worked -- the media snapped it up like a cheese puff at cocktail hour) is now: "it's an anti-incumbent year." The White House was pushing this, because it is a lot better sounding than what the media was using previously, which was: "it's an anti-Democrat year," or even: "it's an anti-Obama-agenda year." Of course, even if it is just an "anti-incumbent" year, Democrats still have more incumbencies to defend, so it's not like the party's out of the woods yet in regards to November.
Rand Paul, who just clinched the Republican Party nomination for the Senate race in Kentucky, is apparently not quite ready for primetime. His recent remarks on the Civil Rights Act painfully show why being a politician is not as easy as some people think. The problem for Paul, son of Ron Paul, is that even if he somehow survives this flap, it is almost guaranteed that there are going to be plenty more of them during the campaign. Because both Pauls, father and son, are (at heart) libertarians. Which requires some explanation, because many folks have never come into contact with the concept of libertarianism.
I'm starting to feel a little like Martin's character, I have to admit. Because President Barack Obama seems to have hit a plateau in his approval ratings, which have remained largely unchanged for the past three months now, and not significantly changed since last November. Could it be that we've all just made up our minds about the job the president is doing? Should I just end this with "next Obama Poll Watch column in three months...?"
I speak of the "value-added tax," or "VAT." Republicans are horrified that President Obama has a secret plan to pass this tax, and are shouting from the rooftops (of the nearest Fox News building) how strongly they're going to oppose it. The facts that Obama himself has come out against the idea, and it seems to have virtually no support in Congress, have not gotten in the way of Republicans doing so, either.
There was an amusing story in the news recently about some folks who got word that a beer company had sent hundreds of cases of beer to the local dump, because it was past its expiration date. Finding this a shame, these enterprising folks "liberated" themselves 50 cases of free beer, presumably to drink it forthwith. The most amusing part was the closing quote in the article, from the beer company's president: "Beer is a popular product."
My wife and I got an eight hundred dollar tax break this year. In fact, almost everybody got this break -- four hundred bucks per person. Apparently, it was passed as part of the stimulus package last year. I do remember, at the time, hearing something about how Obama's stimulus changed people's take-home pay by readjusting the federal withholding figures, but I had no idea it would turn into eight hundred bucks back on my tax form.
What I just wrote could describe tomorrow's "first anniversary" Tea Party rallies. Or it could describe a late-1960s anti-war rally. About the only thing these two historical eras have in common is the age of the driving force behind the protests. In other words, don't look now, but the Baby Boomers are back in the streets.